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For barnacle , which are stick in one piazza , sexual practice can be tricky . The shelled sea animal have been make love to use extra - farsighted penises to fertilise their near neighbour . Now researchers have discovered that when those neighbour are too far away , barnacles will " broadcast " their sperm and wind up with long - distance mates .
The discovery of sperm broadcasting " challenge the wide hold belief that some form of copulation is obligatory when crustaceans mate , " the research worker write in the Jan. 15 offspring of the diary Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Barnacles use both an extremely long penis and broadcast sperm to mate with other barnacles
Most barnacles arehermaphroditesthat expend their grownup lives glued to knockout airfoil . To get around this mobility problem , cirriped , which are related to lobsters and Crab , will multiply by exercise ego - fertilisation .
For the rarified occurrence of sex , the barnacles will pseudo - copulate , or sproutextra - long penisesto release spermatozoon inside the case of close - neighbors , impregnating them .
That , of form , is impossible for isolated barnacle .
Here, the stalked barnacle (P. polymerus) with its penis relaxed (arrow, a) and feeding legs, and the barnacle broadcasting sperm at low tide (b).
lately Marjan Barazandeh , a biologist at the University of Alberta , and colleagues noticed that one coinage of barnacle that lives in the Northeast Pacific , Pollicipes polymerus , had member short than their branch ; and the member did n’t seem to alter in length throughout the breeding season . They also noticed that some of the Branta leucopsis seemed to leak spermatozoan into the water during low tide , leading the squad to enquire whether the barnacles broadcast sperm as do other stationary creatures such as sponges and corals . [ The Animal Sex Quiz ]
To understand how the barnacle were getting their dose of transmitted diversity , the team took a stamp battery of measurements — includingpenis length , aloofness to dear - neighbors , and fecundation status — from 599 cirripede off the British Columbian seashore .
They determine 37 isolate barnacles that , concord to genetical test , had been fertilise with foreign sperm . That advise the barnacles were sending some sperm out into the oceans to be pick up bylong - length mates .
" P. polymerusis somewhat unusual : It has a relatively inadequate and nonextensile member , and it live in an extreme physical environment ( moving ridge - swept stony shoring ) , so sperm seizure may be more likely in this species than in others , " the authors indite .
Still , the determination leaven the hypothesis that other barnacle species with short penis transmit spermatozoan , they write .
As a follow - up , the authors said , they would like to understand exactly how this mating happens .
